How can a score be a call and tool for decolonization? Curated by Candice Hopkins (Tlingit) and Dylan Robinson (Stó:lō), Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts features newly commissioned scores and sounds for decolonization by Indigenous artists who attempt to answer this question. The scores take the form of video, objects, graphic notation, museological objects, and written instructions. At different moments during the exhibition these scores are activated by musicians, dancers, performers and members of the public, gradually filling the gallery and surrounding public spaces with sound and action. Soundings turns up the volume on voices that don’t always have the stage allowing their actions to reverberate through gallery walls and within visitors’ bodies. The exhibition is accumulative, gaining new artists and players throughout the run of the show. Soundings artists include Raven Chacon and Cristóbal Martínez, Sebastian De Line, Camille Georgeson-Usher, Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Kite, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Ogimaa Mikana, Peter Morin, Lisa C. Ravensbergen, Heidi Senungetuk, Olivia Whetung and Tania Willard.

Soundings is accompanied by a postcard publication of scores designed by Sébastien Aubin and a public listening series entitled “Against Hungry Listening,” which will include notable composers, musicians, scholars and artists discussing de-colonial, queer, feminist, black and Indigenous-specific forms of listening.

Public art installations by Raven Chacon, Camille Georgeson-Usher, Ogimaa Mikana and a curatorial score written by Dylan Robinson are on view on Queen’s University main campus.These outdoor artworks are generously supported through the Isabel & Alfred Bader Fund of Bader Philanthropies. Soundings is affiliated with The Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts’ concurrent Ka’tarohkwi Festival of Indigenous Arts. Visit their website for more details on a diverse array of performances by acclaimed Indigenous artists working across theatre, dance, music, film and performance art.

Soundings is one of the 200 exceptional projects funded through the Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter program. With this $35M investment, the Council supports the creation and sharing of the arts in communities across Canada.